X-Wing, TIE Fighter, other LucasArts classics now on GOG

UPDATE: As expected, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Fate of Atlantis, Sam and Max Hit the Road, the original Knights of the Old Republic, and The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition are now on GOG.com. You'll find them all listed here. Fate of Atlantis and Sam and Max are going for £3.69 each (that should be about $5), while the others are listed at £6.19, although Monkey Island and KOTOR will go up to £7.79 when the launch discount ends. According to GOG, we can expect "20+ classic titles" in total.

ORIGINAL STORY: X-Wing and its follow-up, TIE Fighter, are two of the best Star Wars games ever made. In a just dimension, the space sims would've spawned numerous worthy follow-ups. Alas, our dimension is not particularly just, but it did get a little better today with news that both games are coming to GOG.

The happy revelation comes to us by way of the GOG forums, where a pair of threads revealed that the Special Editions of both games will come to the service on October 28. It's not an official announcement, but the messages were posted by the official GOG account, and that's good enough for me. Each game will sell for $10.

This is big news, because as far as I know neither game has been re-released for modern systems prior to this, and since both games require one megabyte of EMS, and you probably don't know what one megabyte of EMS is, having ready-to-run versions for a tenner each is manna from Heaven. And while that's obviously a joke—I have no idea if you know what expanded memory is or not—the simple fact that you don't have to dick around with it is more than worth the price of admission.

There are other games coming as well, including The Secret of Monkey Island, Knights of the Old Republic, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and the excellent Sam and Max Hit the Road. It's a LucasArts extravaganza, which is very good news indeed for gamers of all stripes. But X-Wing and TIE Fighter, man, that's hot.

X-Wing came out in 1993, and so its graphics are rather seriously dated; however, if you're willing to put the effort into it, and you have a copy of the more recent X-Wing Alliance kicking around, you can bring them more up-to-date with the help of a few mods and patches. Instructions for doing so are here.

Andy covers the day-to-day happenings in the big, wide world of PC gaming—the stuff we call "news." In his off hours, he wishes he had time to play the 80-hour RPGs and immersive sims he used to love so much.